• U.S.

Former University of Cincinnati Cop Pays Bond And Is Released From Jail

2 minute read

The former University of Cincinnati police officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black man is out of jail on bond.

Ray Tensing posted 10 percent of his $1 million bail—just over $100,000—on Thursday evening, according to the Hamilton County Clerk’s office, not long after pleading not guilty to murder and involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of 43-year-old Sam DuBose.

Representatives from the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department told the Cincinnati television station WCPO that the 25-year-old officer left the jail at about 6:45 p.m. on Thursday. TIME could not immediately reach the office for comment. Tensing’s lawyer, Stewart Mathews, said Thursday that people across the United States were offering to help pay Tensing’s bond.

The former campus cop was indicted Wednesday in the shooting death of DuBose, who the officer said he was “forced to shoot” in an initial report that alleged the unarmed man had attempted to run the officer over after failing to meet the officer’s request to produce his license.

The local prosecutor, however, felt a recently released body-camera video told a different story. In it, the officer can be seen shooting DuBose in the head and then falling backward. The Hamilton County prosecutor called the shooting the “most asinine act that I’ve ever seen a police officer make.”

Tensing’s lawyer maintains that there are “two sides” to the story. “The case will be tried and decided in court,” Mathews said.

DuBose is one of 669 people who have been killed by police so far in 2015, according to a database by the Guardian newspaper, and 175 of those killed have been black.

 

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com